Wednesday, October 31, 2012

How to get lifesaving drugs to Africa...you can help

I'm an enthusiastic supporter of a humanitarian bill currently moving through Parliament, Bill C-398, that I believe will ensure more affordable HIV/AIDS drugs (anti-retrovirals) get to where they are desperately needed in Africa. The bill actually seeks to streamline earlier CAMR (Canadian Access to Medicines Regime) legislation passed in Canada in 2004, which made it possible to produce inexpensive generic drugs in Canada (carefully monitored) to send to Africa. Well, that legislation was so complicated and cumbersome that only one shipment of drugs has been sent in 8 years!
Now we have the chance to pass a better bill that cuts the red tape and encourages the manufacture of drugs here that can go to help save lives in Africa...with no cost to Canadian taxpayers! What a difference this could make! So, I'm part of GRAN (the Grandmothers Advocacy Network), a group determined to see this bill through, and on November 1, 2012, we'll be rallying across Canada, on various hilltops, (at noon on the hill above Clover Point in Victoria) to send the message to Parliament Hill that we want Bill C-398 passed. You can write or email PM Stephen Harper, (pm@pm.gc.ca) or your MP, and raise your voice too: Pass Bill C-398 and save lives!